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Brian Barder's website and Ephems blog

  • Home
  • What Diplomats Do (book)
    • Reviews
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    • International Affairs
    • Civil Liberties
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Fred Cornwell’s War: a new history of one man’s and his family’s wartime experiences, 1942-46

by Brian · 12 August, 2016

Dear all,

This email contains the full text of the latest Ephems blog post, at http://www.barder.com/4771, describing and linking to a new piece of personal and social history.  The post reads:

My family historian wife, Jane Barder, has exhaustively researched and written a fascinating and often moving account of her father’s (and his family’s) experiences during the second world war, from the time when he was called up into the army to the day when he was formally demobbed (demobilised, or discharged): Fred Cornwell’s War.  There was nothing special about Fred Cornwell’s war, and everything about it was special. Some of Jane’s account derives from narratives describing other soldiers’ experiences in the same ship or army camp or hospital at the same time, much of which was clearly true of Fred’s experiences too.  Other parts come from Fred’s own army records, his few surviving letters home, and Jane’s and her younger sister’s own memories.  Her sources are duly recorded with numerous links to original documents.  Her story is illustrated by some surviving photographs (‘snaps’) and facsimiles of original documents.

Jane’s testimonial to her father’s war-time experiences also gives a thought-provoking impression of the impact on herself, her mother and her sister, and on her other relatives and school-friends, of her father’s long absence, far away in unidentified foreign lands and in permanent danger, while back home in London she and her family were in a different kind of danger, from nightly bombing and rocket raids, bombed out of their home, evacuated to distant Lancashire that was as alien and hostile as if they had been deported to Timbuktu, billeted on reluctant relatives and even more reluctant strangers, hearing only occasional and long out-of-date news of the absent Fred (“well, at least we know he was still alive when he wrote that…”).

All this is meticulously researched — as it should be, written by an experienced historian — and extraordinarily readable, to the point of being riveting.  And it is written without a hint of self-pity.

Of course I’m prejudiced, and it shows. But read it for yourself and see if my assessment of this unique document is justified.  The full text and illustrations are at
http://www.barder.com/family/history/fred-cornwells-war. Just click that link.

If you have any comments on Jane’s paper, please add them on http://www.barder.com/4771 [i.e. not, please, in reply to this email].  Links to accounts of other wartime experiences will be especially welcome.

Footnote:  The words “By Brian” at the top of the cover page of Jane’s paper are the only blatant untruth in the whole text.  I have tried and failed to delete them; they are part of some obscure template that refuses to go away.

Read and enjoy!

Brian

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